Gray Anounces Gains in Student Assessments

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Mayor Vincent Gray and State Superintendent of Education Hosanna Mahaley have announced gains among secondary schools on the 2011 District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS).

Gray and Mahaley were joined by D.C. City Council Chairman Kwame Brown, Deputy Mayor for Education DeShawn Wright, Chancellor Kaya Henderson, D.C. Public Charter School Board member Darren Woodruff and State Board of Education president, Ted Trabue, for the announcement.

"We have made important progress in all of our public schools since 2007, when we placed our schools under the authority of the mayor of the District of Columbia," Gray said in a statement. "We have much to celebrate and even more work to do. Incremental progress is not enough," he said. "We must ensure each student can succeed and thrive in both the national and global economies."

Since 2007, DC-CAS scores in secondary schools have increased by 13.4 percentage points in reading and 19.9 percentage points in mathematics. Increases in the last year were 1.1 percentage points in reading and 3.3 percentage points in mathematics.

Additionally, DC-CAS scores in elementary schools stabilized in 2011 after a decline in 2010; the long-term trend for elementary schools from 2007 remains positive in both reading and mathematics.

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) also released Local Education Agency (LEA) results from the April 2011 administration of the DC-CAS.

"As our LEAs continue to implement significant reforms to ensure that all students receive a quality education, the progress indicated by these results - particularly at the secondary level - is very promising," Mahaley said.

School-level results, along with school and LEA determinations of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), will be made available in early August on OSSE Web site, http://www.osse.dc.gov under "School Test Score Data."